The Antidote to Overwhelm: How to Turn Stress into Solutions

Summary

The Antidote to Overwhelm: How to Turn Stress into Solutions

Episode Release Date: February 25, 2025

Introduction to Overwhelm

In this insightful episode of Business Lunch, host Roland Frazier and his co-host Ryan Dice tackle the pervasive issue of feeling overwhelmed. Drawing from personal experiences and professional expertise, they explore how to transform stress into actionable solutions, offering listeners practical strategies to regain control in both their personal and business lives.

Personal Struggles Reflecting Overwhelm

Roland opens the conversation by sharing a series of personal challenges that exemplify the feeling of overwhelm. From dealing with a sudden change in tariff policies causing a backlog of packages at a FedEx center to battling a relentless moth infestation in their home, Roland paints a vivid picture of how multiple stressors can compound each other ([00:00] Roland Frazier).

Ryan resonates with Roland's experiences, adding his own frustrations with a car accident and the subsequent hassle of insurance and repairs. He underscores how these overlapping issues can create a sense of chaos and helplessness ([03:32] Ryan Dice).

Defining and Understanding Overwhelm

The hosts delve into the nature of overwhelm, defining it as a state where one feels out of control due to a multitude of simultaneous challenges. Roland emphasizes that overwhelm stems from life's unpredictable circumstances overwhelming one's sense of agency:

“Overwhelm is a state of hopelessness. And the solution to it is hopelessness is not an option.”
– [34:03] Roland Frazier

Ryan adds that maintaining perspective is crucial:

“There are two types of people in this world. There are people who believe the world happens to them, and there are people who believe that they happen to the world.”
– [34:03] Ryan Dice

Step-by-Step Strategies to Overcome Overwhelm

Inventorying and Organizing

Ryan introduces a structured framework to combat overwhelm. The first step involves making a detailed inventory of all the factors contributing to one's stress, categorized into paired opposites:

• Pride vs. Regret
• Confidence vs. Lack
• Excitement vs. Worry

“These are all the fricking regrets that I have. And one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they never do business with the past and they never process the regrets.”
– [14:10] Ryan Dice

Prioritization and Sequencing

Understanding the importance of prioritization, Roland and Ryan discuss how to sequence actions based on what must be addressed first. Instead of merely ranking tasks by importance or urgency, they advocate for determining the "right next thing" that logically follows to make progress:

“What must be true that isn't true today? To feel more confidence, to feel less regret, to feel less worry.”
– [19:42] Ryan Dice

Seeking Support and Collaboration

Recognizing the value of external support, Ryan advises having a trusted partner or peer to navigate through overwhelming times. This support system provides clarity and objective perspectives that one might miss when engulfed in stress:

“You need to choose that person really carefully because they need to be good at empathy and support, but also be clear thinking and capable of action.”
– [30:15] Roland Frazier

Empowering Mindset and Maintaining Control

A significant portion of overcoming overwhelm lies in one's mindset. Roland shares an empowering philosophy to reclaim control amidst chaos:

“Fate whispered to the warrior, the storm is coming. And the warrior whispered to fate, I am the storm.”
– [35:36] Roland Frazier

Ryan complements this by encouraging a proactive stance:

“Believe that you are someone who happens to the world because those people just happen to be a whole lot happier.”
– [34:03] Ryan Dice

Conclusion and Takeaways

Roland and Ryan wrap up the episode by reinforcing the importance of organization, prioritization, and support in managing overwhelm. They caution against offering immediate solutions to those currently in distress, emphasizing the value of empathetic support and guiding others through the structured framework they've discussed.

Notable Quotes:

• Roland Frazier ([35:36]): "Fate whispered to the warrior, the storm is coming. And the warrior whispered to fate, I am the storm."

• Ryan Dice ([19:42]): "What must be true that isn't true today?"

• Ryan Dice ([14:10]): “These are all the fricking regrets that I have. And one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they never do business with the past and they never process the regrets.”

This episode serves as a valuable resource for anyone feeling overwhelmed, providing a clear framework to transform stress into actionable steps and regain control over life's challenges.

Transcript

[Roland Frazier]

I was just reading about the limbo that exists between the de minimis tariff exclusion thing, where any goods under $800 that are being shipped in, generally the person that's bringing them in doesn't pay a duty on that. And that got revoked, which caused a million pieces of a million packages to pile up in just one FedEx Center. Hey, everybody. Welcome to business lunch with your hosts, me, Roland Frazier, and my wonderful partner, Ryan Dice. Ryan, how are you doing today?

[Ryan Dice]

I'm doing way better than you because I don't have a massive moth infestation where I'm having to basically clear out of everything. Hopefully this isn't too much information, I'm not revealing too much personal life, but yeah, man, that sucks. You want to give everybody the lowdown on what you're having to deal with.

[Roland Frazier]

Right now we, we have moths that somehow made it into my wife's closet and then somehow spread over to my closet and then somehow spread to her art room and one other closet or something in the house. And so I don't see them, by the way. So it's not like you walk in and there's a, you know, fluttering flurry of, of creatures, but, but they're definitely there. And so we have. She's been dealing with it for a couple months and we finally are looking into, or getting, you know, we looked into what does it actually take to get rid of them permanently? And it's basically we have to take all of our clothes, rent a giant walk in freezer, put it in our driveway for a week, and have our clothes at 0 degrees, all of them in there at 0 degrees, for basically 72 hours, and then wipe down all the surfaces with some sort of moth oil stuff. And in the closets, which are cedar, by the way, our closets are cedar. So, you know, let's not hear it for how good cedar is at repelling them. And then I guess we'll set off some, you know, moth bombs or something, but hopefully that will do it. It's because it's definitely something that's given her, you know, a hard time for a long time now. So it'll be nice to get rid of those guys.

[Ryan Dice]

Well, I do like the flex of the multi closet thing that you worked in there. They got in her closet, then they got in mine, and then they got into another kind of satellite closet and they got into an art room. Then they got into like any other kind of like bougie spaces you want to kind of throw out there casually.

[Roland Frazier]

Fortunately, we were able to keep them out of the wine cellar. And.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah, I think probably because it's cold.

[Roland Frazier]

They don't like that. And same thing. We keep the, you know, the music studio pretty. Pretty down the, you know, the theater is, you know, and the basketball courts, I don't think they really even care about. But, no, I don't.

[Ryan Dice]

Do they stay out of the Beanie Babies collection? I know that's a big, big thing for you.

[Roland Frazier]

Well, the Beanie Babies room, as you know, is hermetically sealed and humidified. So, you know, I know you and I have spent a lot of really quality time in there talking about things, so.

[Ryan Dice]

Well, it is one of those things, though, where. And we were talking about this. We were. You know, because all this happened, you know, you're. You're dealing with that, like, and it's like this series of just garbage, like, just nonsense, like, you know, same deal at, like, my house. It's. It's like bunch of stuff like breaks and all happens at once. Somebody, you know, backed into, you know, my wife's car. And it's, you know, so freaking frustrating because, like, okay, let's call the insurance. Let's deal with the body shop. And it's like, I just. I didn't want to do this. You know, I didn't really had a.

[Roland Frazier]

Car that didn't have that.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah, I already had this stuff. I didn't want to have to get new things and spend a lot of time, a lot of money to just have the same thing, you know, that I already had. But this is kind of life, and I think, you know, I know this is. This is somewhat relevant to actually what we were planning on talking about today, because I do think that this is one of the things that breaks a lot of people. And I know, even us, like, you know, I was feeling like crap with my week, and then you. Because we had to reschedule some stuff, like, literally, we had a trip to Napa planned. And you're like, hey, man, I got to cancel it, because I'm dealing with this moth thing just like A Series of unfortunate events. And you're like, I can't go. I'm dealing with all this stuff. And I instantly felt better about my life when I saw just, like, all the garbage that you're having to deal with that shot. I mean, not. Not that I was happy that you're.

[Roland Frazier]

Dealing with my garbage life moment is helpful to you, though.

[Ryan Dice]

Oh, I just helped with the perspective. But. But what I love that you said. And you're, you know, you are good at putting it into perspective, you know, is just, thankfully, you know, we do have the means and we do have the ability to. To fix this. And you are always, you know, maintaining agency in these things, and. And you're. You're always somebody who, you know, is that kind of high agency person. I just. I know we started talking about that, and that's an important aspect of. Of this life that we live, of the entrepreneurial journey. And so, yeah, I just. I kind of wanted to chat about that because I know you're doing a lot of research and thinking in this as well.

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah. And I don't know, maybe this is the high agency episode, or maybe this is the episode to see if there's anything that we can come up with about helping people who are going through challenges and tough times. Because I think the high agency thing's a little bit different. At least my take on it on it is. So let's just do that for a minute and see what happens with this as an episode. So there are always things that are going on that are less than optimal. Occasionally it feels like you're getting hit in the face again and again and again and again. And that's what I think both of our wives are going through right now is they're. They're feeling pretty beat up. My wife had. We had the. The moth thing going on. She's had all kinds of medical challenges with her, with her legs and stuff. And. And then we had a mouse that died inside a wall, the wall that it chose to die in. And this is not an attempt to deflect. It's just what's happening was in our sauna. So, you know, you just want to cook that dead mouse body up through the heat of the sauna to let it waft its wonderful piquant aroma throughout the house. And. And then I guess we had some sort of plumbing backup in our washing machines. And. And so my wife is, like, very ocd. She will tell you that. And so to basically be in a house that has the closets kind of taken apart, because she took her closet apart, she had too many clothes in there, too. And so we've got, like, hanging racks in our bathroom and clothes that are hanging in the bedroom and hanging racks in our garage where she was going to, you know, to try to take care of this, and a smelly, you know, dead rat in the sauna and a smelly plumbing backup. And then her best friend was just admitted to the hospital, and. And I guess, you know, is given hours or days to live from a cancer thing she's going through with. And she's up in a place that's very hard to get to for. For my wife, who has a hard time traveling anyway because of her legs. So she's just like, you know, ah. And I made the mistake of saying we redid this room that I'm recording in right now, which used to have a pool table behind me. Now it's more office podcast worky. It's got a desk and chairs and couch. And. And I wanted to put a keyboard over in the corner where the, where there's a, like a kind of a couch type thing under the didgeridoos right now. And, and so I told her, I said, yeah, that that keyboard is coming, so we, you know, we're going to need to move that. And she just burst into tears. And I was like, what? You know, I won't play what? You know, she's like, no, it's just, it's that. That's one more thing to have to think about moving that I can't handle anymore. I'm at the breaking point, and I think that happens to a lot of us. And one good thing about having either a business partner or a life partner that hopefully isn't going through the breaking point at the moment that you are is that that person can help support. And, you know, there's ways to go about that that are good or bad. You can be upset that the person is upset. You can be upset with them. You can, you can be mad at them for not being able to handle more. You can weigh all the things that you're dealing with that might seem to you like a whole lot more than the things that they're dealing with, but that doesn't make the way they're feeling any less valid and it isn't helpful. Or you can be the problem solver, fixer, which is dangerous as a guy because we tend to not want to go through the process. We tend to want to just go to the. Let me fix that. So balancing that is always an interesting thing as well. And so what, you know, what I always start with is what can I do to help? I am so sorry that, you know, that this is the situation that you're dealing with. How can I help? And then try to have the process. I have an idea, you know, in my head because that's, that's, that's how I think right. Is like, okay, answers are 1, 2, 3, 4. Let's do that on it, you know, but that's not, that's not the right process, at least not with my wife or most, most of the women that I've talked to. So I think it might be interesting to talk a little bit about that because I bet a lot of people right now with high interest rates, if you've got variable mortgage loans or, or variable, variable rate mortgages or variable rate loans, you're dealing with payments that you probably didn't expect. If you are trying to buy things, like if you, any of your things are breaking and you have to fix them, or you need Capex in your company or anything like that, you're paying a whole lot more for it than you would have five or six years ago, assuming that you can get it. And if you need it really badly, you might not be able to get it because supply chains are disrupted and now we've got tariffs that we might be dealing with that, that we didn't before, which was interesting. I was just reading about the limbo that exists between the de minimis tariff exclusion thing and where any goods under $800 that are being shipped in, generally the person that's bringing them in doesn't pay a duty on that. And that got revoked, which caused a million pieces of a million packages to pile up in just one FedEx center over a month period, because they didn't know what to do. They're like, do we collect duty on that? We're sure as hell not going to pass them all through and just eat it. And we know that if we send out a million packages, a million people aren't going to pay us what they owe us on the, you know, on the duty. So what's going to go on with that? So there's a lot of uncertainty and I know business for a lot of people in several of the industries we're involved in is down and that is affecting people as well. I know. I think one of our roundtable people that we were just talking to was down over half from, you know, from last year.

So just.

I'll stop that. But basically just my setup here is what are the things, Ryan, that you do or how do you help people when they're going through difficult times?

[Ryan Dice]

What you do, step number one is you look them in the eyes and you go, you raise your hand and you go, calm down.

[Roland Frazier]

That's good, that's good advice.

[Ryan Dice]

And you go, shka, calm down. Yeah, especially. I do this with my wife all the time. No, I'm kidding. Never do that.

[Roland Frazier]

Have you ever tried just get, you just need to deal with it or just get over it, Right? Yeah. Those are also.

[Ryan Dice]

Hey, have you, have you tried just getting over it? Right. Yeah, no, exactly. None of that is going to work. No. I mean, walking through some, walking with somebody through that kind of thing really is difficult because you've got a perspective that they don't have and you want to bring that perspective to them in the moment. And it's utterly unhelpful in that moment because. Because you do have to kind of just hold a little bit of space for them as they're, as they're going through it. So it's, it's difficult. I'm not a particularly patient person. I definitely want to go straight to solutions mode. Being married for 20 plus years has taught me a lot of valuable lessons because I've done that and I've seen it not work a number of times. And so a lot of it is just shutting up and listening and just saying, hey, so let's talk it out. Because what I have found, when you're dealing with chaos and stress, just saying the things out loud is step one. Because when we get it out of our heads, now they become things. Now those thoughts that are just swirling around amorphously now, all of a sudden there are these things called words. And once they become words, they become things that we can deal with. So what I actually want to try to do, and I do this for myself, I've got a very specific exercise that I go through and I do this proactively every 90 days. But if I'm really stressed out, I'll do this in general. Like, I'll just make a point of doing this. And what I do, first thing is I want to contextualize what I'm dealing with. And so to do that, I got to look back. And so first I'm going to look back and I'm going to say, okay, what do I have that I am really proud of over the last 90 days? Right. That's just, as I look back, what are some good things that have happened? And that is helpful because now we're beginning to introduce a little bit of gratefulness. Now, again, I do this, for me, the worst thing in the world that you can do when somebody is swirling, you know, twirling in a really bad state is like, well, I think it's important that we just remember, you know, count our blessings. Don't do that. Okay.

[Roland Frazier]

That is also very not helpful. Yeah. Even though it's true, it's not helpful.

[Ryan Dice]

Don't, don't do that. But if you can get beyond that emotional state into a solutions Mode truly getting to a point where you say, okay, what are the things that I am proud of that have happened over last night? And that's important. Not, what am I grateful for? What am I proud of? That is different. But then I want to contrast that with what are some of my regrets. I always want to be working in paired opposites. So pride and regret. Pride is what is going to keep me going. But the regrets, typically, if I am swirling and twirling, it's a function of mistakes or happenstance that has already occurred. So I need to collect all of that stuff. I need to swim in that, I need to live in that, and I need to list it out. So it's like, these are all the fricking regrets that I have. And one of the biggest mistakes that people make and the reason that people get into these really tough states is they never do business with the past and they never process the regrets. They'll spin them. They'll go Pollyanna with it. They'll say, I have no regrets. I don't believe that. I think it's fine to say I've learned from mine, and therefore my regrets are no longer regrets. But until you've processed them right, I think it's important to treat them as what they are. And regrets, to me, are some of the most valuable things, because that's where the lessons are. So that's kind of the first step I want to look back.

[Roland Frazier]

So the thing about that, I think is really good about what you said, is that overwhelm is generally a result, I believe, of a lack of organization. And it's so many things, thoughts, feelings are coming at you at once that you can't deal with them. But if you do put them into words, if you do list them out, if you do have them, an inventory of all of the things that are coming at you, then it gives you the ability to organize them. Number one, it lets you actually know what they are. That it's not just a feeling of angst and overwhelm. And I have no idea, because you can't do anything about it if you don't have anything to work on, right? They say what gets measured gets managed, right? So the first thing is, what's my inventory of overwhelming things? And then that's the words thing, I think, that you said. And then you can think about how important are each of these things in terms of urgency or impact? And. And if you've got. If you've got the ability to do that, then at least you can say, I don't think I can get through this. It's just too much stuff. Or you can say, this is an elephant I need to eat one bite at a time. And, and it's not the same elephant. Like, it's not a wall of one thing that is undeal, withable. It is a. A group of things that can be pieced off and picked off one by one so that I can get it down to manageable. And that, that, that I think helps because I'm not sure. And I like, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about her situation, my wife's right now, and I'm thinking about, you know, businesses that I guess you could, you could do the regret inventory and say, well, I regret that I took on that loan or I bought that piece of equipment or I let that customer go, or I didn't invest more heavily in marketing. But I'm not, and I'm curious for you, how does that help you get past. And maybe it's the next steps. How does that help you get past it? Because, like, I don't see that my wife could really set. Could say she regrets anything about the stuff that she's dealing with and people that are impacted by external events like presidential tariffs and things like that. I don't, I don't know that they could, you know, they could do that.

[Ryan Dice]

And that's why we're not. Yeah, the inventory collection is. You're right, but we're not done. So step. The first aspect of that is looking back. Yeah, that's pride and regret. The next step is looking at the present. And the question we asked there is again, paired opposites. What am I confident about today? And then where do I feel like I lack? So what am I confident in? So what are some things that I feel like I can really stand on? And then similarly, what do I feel like I lack? So confidence and lack is the question we're gonna ask. And that allows me to kind of anchor the present. So we wanna do business with the past. We wanna anchor the present. So what doesn't show up in the past in terms of regret is typically gonna show up in lack now. What doesn't show up in regret or lack is now we want to envision the future. And so the question we're going to ask there is what am I excited about and what am I worried about? So if you ask those six questions, what am I proud of? What do I regret? What am I confident about? What do I lack? What am I excited about? What am I worried about?

[Roland Frazier]

Right.

[Ryan Dice]

You have Fully processed and fully taken inventory of the context that you are living in. Right? But you've done it at the full spectrum of it. You're not merely focusing on the negative, but you are allowing yourself to go there for the sake of learning and dealing with the reality. But what you're also doing along the way is you're gathering tools. Because all the things that you're confident in, the things you're proud of, the things you're excited about, these are all tools that we can pull in to deal with it. Now, the question that we ask, and this goes to what you were saying before, which is organization and prioritization. What must be true that isn't true today? To feel more confidence, to feel more, you know, pride, to feel a lot less regret, to feel less lack, to feel less worry. And when we have all these things before us now, we can begin to list, okay, what are the things that aren't true today? And then the mistake that people tend to make is they will order them based on impact and they'll order them based on priority. And that's where people get stuck. Because you can't actually execute based on impact and priority. You have to execute based on sequence. And this is what, you know, this is, I think, what people who are in business are good at and what most normal people are not is we have high executive function, which means we can look at a situation and we can immediately see, okay, you obviously have to do this, this, then this, then this, then this, then this. A lot of people don't see it that way. And so for us, it seems so obvious. They just see like, okay, I've got to deal with this thing right here. But the reason they get overwhelmed is because they don't see the five or six things that must occur, that are smaller, seemingly innocuous, that must occur before that. And that's why they get stuck. So when. When you identify the thing, you don't ask, what's the most important. The question you ask is, what is the right next thing? What is the right next thing that must occur to get there? And you're only asking that question, what's the right next thing? What's the right next thing? And I think for anybody in any chaotic situation, that's the only question that matters. What's the right next thing? If you're in chaos, that's your question, what's the right next thing? And this is chaos in life, chaos in business. And I think it's the right next thing if you're a CEO, I Like.

[Roland Frazier]

The right next thing. I do think that important and urgent are going to fit into that. And so I think that if you're, you know, if you're, what is it the Eisenhower matrix that has important, not important, urgent, not urgent. If you guys aren't familiar with it, it's. It's worth looking up the Wikipedia on and checking it out. It's very simple. But I think that you do. I think the right next thing has to apply to the thing that is important and urgent or the things that are important and urgent. So maybe it's first you sort that, and then you say, what's the right next thing to get this important urgent thing that I've ranked highest done. But I think you got to do that first.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah. And that's what I was saying when I said answer the question, what must be true that isn't true today? That's kind of that initial sorting that I was referencing. Right. So that's where you're going to come up with, like, typically five to seven things that are truly important, truly urgent that must get done. The mistake there is, that's where people stop and they're looking at the five or six things that must get done. Okay, well, we have to get a giant freezer delivered to our house to deal with this moth thing. That's the thing that's got to get done.

[Roland Frazier]

You know what's interesting about that?

[Ryan Dice]

And that's such an overwhelming project that they're like, but I don't know how. Right, so that's the big project, but what's the right next thing? The right next thing is to figure out what's a local company that even does, you know, so it's, it's always identifying, yeah, this is the big project, but what's the right next thing? Yeah, and that's going to inform the next. The next.

[Roland Frazier]

I was going to say it's interesting because my first thing was to go to how do you get rid of moths? You know, what do you need to do to do it? And there's, you know, basically tent your house and, you know, pesticide it all up and destroy all your landscaping and everything or other things. And then I saw the freezing thing, and so I was like, okay, well, then it seems like the easy thing to do is we can't. Can't put a compressor in the room, because I know that from wanting to do a wine room before, you have to treat the walls and everything, because compressors and cold creates moisture, which creates mildew and mold. So you can't Just go in and put something in there so I can't do it in the room. So then I was like, okay, well can I get a freezer? And when I did that, I immediately went online, researched portable walk in rental freezer companies and found several. And, and when I told several people about it, they were like, I had no idea that was even possible. And I think that's like, that's part of it is don't rule out anything as impossible until you have confirmed its impossibility. Right. So like, like to me it was, what are the, what's the menu of solutions then? It's this one seems to be the one that would be the best. And I don't care if it's possible or not yet now I'm not going to rule it out because I think it's impossible in my head or I don't know that it is possible. And that, that's something that I think is a giant important step because I run into people that say that all the time. Like, I had no idea you could even do that. And I'm like, neither did I until I went and found out. Right.

[Ryan Dice]

Actively seek to confirm impossibility.

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah, I'll be shocked how often you fail. Yeah, right.

[Ryan Dice]

Delightfully surprised how often you fail in trying to confirm that it's impossible. But I think we're, you know, we're lazy and we're discouraged and we just want to just believe that, that it can't be done. No. Actively seek to confirm impossibility.

[Roland Frazier]

And I'm using this, this personal analogies that I hope you guys can draw your own conclusions to your personal or business situations from. But, so where she started was, you know, well, we, you have to dry clean the clothes. Dry cleaning, the treatment of dry cleaning of clothes will kill them. She's got so many clothes. It was going to be like $20,000 to clean the clothes. So now I'm measuring the cost of renting a freezer, which is going to be about $1,000 against the $20,000 and huge effort of carting all of the clothes out off site to, you know, to some dry cleaner place where I would definitely negotiate a deal. But still, let's say I got half of that is 10 grand. That's, that's like insane. And, and now I'm comparing that to my possible, but probably crazy expensive, let's rent a giant freezer like, you know, like the size of a 18 wheeler and put it in our driveway for a week. It turns out that's cheaper by, you know, what? 95%. So that's, that's to me that's like an interesting exercise to go through because it's what, what's my. So if, let's kind of step this into process, so put it into words. What is the list of things that are overwhelming me? Yeah. Now, now it can be managed and ordered. Rank it by importance and urgency. But we're not going to take any action yet. Now determine the thing out of that list that's important and urgent that you want to tackle first. Because it might not like maybe there's something that's really big, but it just got, it just feels so big and it's going to take a year to fix and you need to take some, some bandwidth hogging stuff off your plate. So maybe take the thing that's third. That can be done immediately because I think that's like maybe it's, it's importance, urgency and speed of remediation. Right. You know, or speed to remedy and then ask your question, what's the next right thing to do? Now I've picked the one thing. I'm going to go after that one thing, one bite of that giant elephant of a problem set that's facing me. I've decided I'm going to focus on the, you know, left leg. And, and now the question is what's the next right thing to do to accomplish that? Set that in motion by first not just, just research the potential solutions and don't rule out anything is impossible just because you think it might be. Because you might find. When you do the research, which would be the next step, do the research and find out what is the possibility and cost of the next right thing that you chose as being first choice. And if you can afford it and make it happen and all of that kind of stuff, then it's. That's the thing to do. Does that, how does that sound as a kind of a framework?

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah, I think that's great and I would, I would just add to it along the way. Get a buddy like get, get somebody to walk with you through this. Because if you're going through all those steps alone, not only are you running the risk of falling right back into a state of chaos and despair, but you're not getting that additional help and assistance of somebody with a much clearer mind because they're not going through that chaos. I mean, stress makes you dumber.

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah.

[Ryan Dice]

I mean that's just a scientific fact. Like you lose IQ points when you are under stress. So to get the benefit of other people helping you through this. Not just people who aren't in a state of stress, but people who maybe have been there, done that before, they've been in the same situation, they've got the extra, you know, experience. They can do research on your behalf. Just make sure that you have those people in your life because like they very easily can have answers that you don't have, see opportunities that you would never see. So that's the only piece that I.

[Roland Frazier]

Would add to that and I like that a lot. And that means that you need to choose that person really carefully because they need to be good at empathy and support, but also be clear thinking and capable of action. And so.

[Ryan Dice]

And it means it can't probably, it probably can't just be a business partner and a life partner, by the way. Right. This is where. And this sounds self serving.

[Roland Frazier]

I feel like you could do it. I feel like I can do it. I feel like my wife can do that for me and I feel like Emily can do that for you. So I think that's great.

[Ryan Dice]

I think that's the first one. But the danger of it is if you are going through a business situation and then your business partner is going through it with you, they may not be the clearest thinker. Like yeah, I think you.

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah, we're assuming the other person is not overwhelmed by. By the things that you're overwhelmed with.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah, correct. And so this is where having somebody who you do trust, who's a peer in business can be very helpful. And it sounds self serving, but this is part of the reason that we're involved in and that we host business masterminds. It is for these reasons that they exist. Right. It's not just for the idea sharing and the good times. They're the most valuable when you're in moments of chaos. That is when they can be the most helpful.

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah. The other thing that I would say as a thought, because this is something that's always helpful to me, is that there's a qualifier to it, but it's a very rare occurrence is that tomorrow is going to come. Unless it doesn't. So tomorrow is going to come. The history of your entire life is that tomorrow comes and maybe one day it won't. Likely one day it won't, but hopefully that'll be many, many, many, many years in the future for you. So overwhelm is not an acceptable state. And I start with that, that like I'm starting to feel bad because there's all of this stuff going on. And I got to tell you, I mean, I Was definitely walking through the house going, I just, oh, one of those, you know, I just, I, I, I would like for. This seems like a lot. That's actually what I said to myself. This seems like a lot. And so it was interesting because it was really the morning that my wife, you know, got completely overwhelmed. And but to me, it's, it is instantly when I start to feel it. This is not acceptable. I am the agent of change and I am in control of making this happen. And I think the key is because to me, overwhelm is, it is out. Life is affecting me and carrying me along through these circumstances that are happening. I am out of control. And that's why I felt overwhelmed. I think that's got to be something to do with the definition of it, which we probably should have looked up before we talked about it. But, but overwhelm is not acceptable to me because I will not allow life to be in control and me not. And that doesn't mean that I can't. It doesn't mean that I can control the rat dies in the wall. The plumbing backs up the, whatever, the interest rates go up, tariffs get put on my stuff. I get that that is the whirlwind of life that's going around out there, but I get to reach into the whirlwind and own plucking out something I'm going to do something about to reduce the number of things that are crashing into me. And if I feel like that, I think it's really hard to get overwhelmed because the sequence that we talked about is basically what I do. I'm guessing it's probably what you do too. And, and the key to being able to do that is not surrendering sovereignty, you know, not surrendering that you are the, you are the change. You are the ability to control that. And so I just think that's an important overarching thought to have as you, as you deal with all that life decides to throw at you.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah. One of the things I've been saying to my kids since they were way too young to understand, but I wanted to drill it into their, into their little brains. I've always taught them there are two types of people in this world. There are people who believe the world happens to them, and there are people who believe that they happen to the world. Believe that you are someone who happens to the world because those people just happen to be a whole lot happier. And, and I'll even ask them when, when they would get stressful in school. Are you, is the world happening to you? Right now, or are you going to happen to the world? Like, are you happening to this or is it going to happen? And it is a choice. And there are absolutely times in this world I don't want to be so, you know, flippant as to say that there aren't people in such wretched circumstances that they have total and absolute control, because. No, I mean, there are people that are in such horrific states that they don't. They don't. And I'm not going to pretend like that's not the case. But for most of us, if you're listening to this right now on a tiny little computer in your pocket or driving around and something like, you're probably not one of those people. Right? You probably do have a fair bit of control over. Like you said, you're a little corner of the. Of the world in spite of the whirlwind. So, yeah, reach out and pluck something out of there and. And realize you got maybe a little bit more control that over. I love what you said. Overwhelm is not, you know, as just kind of the standard state. That's not an option. It's not. So what are we going to do about it?

[Roland Frazier]

Yeah, I like. It's on the. Etched into the bottle of one of yours and my favorite wines, 100 Acre Wraith. And I believe it is. I don't remember who said it. Maybe you know who said it, but it was. It says, fate whispered to the warrior, the storm is coming. And the warrior whispered to fate, I am the storm. I like that. I be the storm. Right? And it's like that. That and the. The meme that. That our other business partner, Richard Lindner, showed us some time ago of a lion with blood on its face. That said. That said everybody, what is it? Is it sometimes? What is it?

[Ryan Dice]

Everybody. Everybody wants to be the lion until it's time to do lion stuff.

[Roland Frazier]

Everybody wants to be a lion until you have to do lion stuff. And then, you know, that's the few. That's who you want to be. You want to be the lion. You want to be the storm. Don't give up control. Don't give up hope. Overwhelm is, I believe, a state of hopelessness. And the solution to it is hopelessness is not an option. Hopeless is not acceptable. Fear is not an option. I am in control. And all I need to do to gain or regain or assert control and make change is to follow the steps we said, which starts with who's the enemy? You know, if. If it's just an unidentifiable overwhelming anxiety feeling. There is no enemy, there is no thing that can be done. You're fighting smoke, you're fighting ghosts. And so bring those into focus as a reality and inventory them. And now you can knock them down. So that's that. I think that's a. I think it's a fun episode. Honestly, I really like that.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it does. Hopefully meet some people who, who needed it, you know, where they were. I know, I know that there are plenty of times when I needed to rehear this myself. So we are not immune to this.

[Roland Frazier]

I will say, when someone is going through this, don't say, ah, I have the perfect solution for you. I have a seven step framework for you to overcome your overwhelm. No, no, no, no, no. You are going to coach them through, you know, the steps. They're not in a place to think about it at that time. You can talk about how it was done later when you're, you know, clinking glasses saying, ain't it great? You know, just a year ago or six months or three weeks ago, we were, you know, in a bad place and look how good we are now. Then you can say, you know, it's interesting. The way I deal with that is that. But definitely it's pretty much the same as saying, calm down.

[Ryan Dice]

Yeah, I know. In a little bit we're going to wrap this and you're going to tell people if they like this episode to share it with a friend. Don't share this episode with somebody if they're in the midst of this. Do go to them, throw an arm around them, walk with them.

[Roland Frazier]

Use this framework to help them.

[Ryan Dice]

Use it to help them. Yeah, use the help of the love of God. Don't forward it on to them. I love that.

[Roland Frazier]

All right, well, true to form, Ryan has predicted that I will say, if you guys enjoyed this episode, I really enjoyed this talk. It's good for me to hear and it's actually helpful to me to go through this to now help the few people in my life that are going through some overwhelm and not by telling them, hey, you should listen to this episode we just did or to calm down. But if you found it helpful, please share it. Please let us know if you enjoyed it. If you have other thoughts or ideas to tweak what we talked about and make it even better, we are wide open to that and welcome. It would love to hear from you on all the social medias that exist. And we'll see you next time on Business Lunch.

Hey, Roland Frazier. Here.

[Ryan Dice]

If you're looking for a way to.

[Roland Frazier]

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